Alif Laila Book Bus - A Mobile Library in Lahore
To encourage literacy in Pakistan, in 1983, The Asia Foundation undertakes a major three-year project to provide "Box Libraries" throughout rural Pakistan, utilizing buses as mobile libraries.
It used to visit Schools and for a long time, A Book ...

PPP formation, 1967: It&rsquo;s amazing how little is available by way of any visual documentation of what was perhaps one the most iconic events in the history of Pakistani politics &ndash; i.e. the formation of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) during a convention in Lahore in 1967.
The convent...

I once had a chance of working with an NGO for raising awareness about the dengue fever. We worked tirelessly day and night in the streets of old Lahore, which is referred to as the &ldquo;down town.&rdquo; A canal demarcates life in Lahore. Northern Lahore and its outskirts constitute the &ldquo...

Lahore is touted as the cultural hub of Punjab and the heart of Pakistan. There is a famous saying here in Pakistan &ldquo;jinnay Lahore nahi vekhea o jamya nai&rdquo; which roughly translates into (anyone who hasn&rsquo;t seen Lahore, hasn&rsquo;t been born yet) and many believe that the main at...

The dawns I witnessed here while living on this piece of land are pellucidly different and distinct from those I have witnessed in the earlier years of my life. Every day&rsquo;s aurora cannot be unvaried only because it is the first light of just another day from the same star; it is destined to...

An Article by Aminah Suhail Qureshi
While looking at &ldquo;Homage to the Square&rdquo; by Josef Albers, I just wondered what he must have been thinking back in 1963 while creating this simplistic yet an intricate piece of art &ndash; a square within a square in yet another square. At first it s...

In the April of 1955, Lahore was shaken by an extraordinary event and for a few dizzying days, residents from the City of Gardens converged on the railway station to catch a glimpse of one of Hollywood&rsquo;s most glamorous pair - Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger.
Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger...

Master Madan (1927 - 1942) was a talented Ghazal singer of India of pre-partition, a child prodigy died at the young age of 14 years, During his lifetime he recorded only 8 songs which include this Punjabi Folk "Raavii De Parle Kande Ve Mitara". Other famous ghazals are ,'Yun Naa Rah Rah Ke Hame ...

Model Town kay teen aanay - Nanda Bus ServiceNanda Bus Service was established in 1930 by Mr. Gulzarilal Nanda (later Indian Prime Minister) and Chaudhry Ahmed of Sialkot.A Clip from c. 1941 blockbuster film "Khazanchi" produced by Pancholi Productions, Lahore.&nbsp;

Project Lahore: telling a story pictorially
by Ishtiaq Ahmad / DailyTimes.
Siddique Shahzad and Qasim Khan's devotion to Lahore testifies to the abiding attraction of the tall Punjabi boast: Jinai Lahore naheen vaikhaya, O jamaye hee nahin
I am not sure if any city on the Indian subcontinent e...

by Parkash Tandon
FOR the first generation of professional men in the Punjab it had been the natural thing after retirement to go back to the place they came from, and spend their last years as respected elder, village or small town society. But father&rsquo;s generation had grown away from thei...

Which Lahorite will not remember a light-green coloured&nbsp;Chevrolet truck (Green Circled in Photo taken by Mr. Shahid Zaidi in 1959) parked at one or two well chosen spots on the Mall selling Zam Zam cola and A Vimto Soda under a Rupee.&nbsp;One was at Regal chowk and other in front of Alfalah...

Allama Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi founded the Khaksar Movement, aiming to advance the condition of the masses irrespective of any faith, sect, or religion, &nbsp;a &nbsp;social movement based in Lahore, established in 1931 to free India from the rule of the British Empire and establish a Hindu-Mus...

[Left ] Place of Shahadat of Major Raja Aziz Bhatti Shaheed near Burki Lahore showing his Gun and Helmet
[Right] A photo taken few months earlier.&nbsp;
On 6 September 1965, as a Company Commander in the Burki area of the Lahore sector, Major Raja Aziz Bhatti choose to stay with his forward pla...

September 1965 - When the Indian troops were advancing towards Lahore in 1965, they faced severe resistance from the Pakistani armed forces. To boost the morale, the Indian commander told the troops on the wireless communication that Lahore is only 2 - 3 miles away. At that time, the communicatio...

Golden Throne of Maharaja Ranjit Singh made by Hafiz Muhammad Multani in Lahore c. 1820
Maharaja&nbsp;Ranjit Singh, commissioned this famous golden throne to commemorate his conquest of the city of Multan in 1818. India was traditionally a furniture-less culture, and maharajas would sit on the f...

Article by Ishtiaq Ahmed
Large-scale rioting in the undivided Punjab subsided from March14, 1947, onwards, but enough blood had been spilled not to letthe Punjab return to normality. Lahore, Amritsar, Multan and Rawalpindi witnessed harrowing scenes of inhumanity hither to unknown to the Punjab....

Magic lantern is an early type of image projector employing pictures on sheets of glass.&nbsp;
The lantern slide has its origins in 17th century optical viewing devices which came to be known as &ldquo;magic lanterns.&rdquo; The earliest slides for magic lanterns consisted of hand-painted images...

Lahore Memories - LM011: The Mian&rsquo;s of Baghbanpura - Lahore c. 1910
Contributed and Narrated by: Mian Haroun Rashid
"This photograph is believed to have been taken in London circa 1910 and shows four members of the Mian Family of Baghbanpura, Lahore. All of whom were, or subsequently beca...

Edwin Lord Weeks (1849 &ndash; 1903) was an American artist. After his studies in Paris, Weeks emerged as one of America's major painters of Orientalist subjects. Throughout his adult life he was an inveterate traveler and journeyed to South America (1869), Egypt and Persia (1870), Morocco (frequ...

"Jine Lahore Nai Vekhiya O Jamiya Nai" is centuries old punjabi saying about Lahore, the one who never visited lahore, not born yet. How surprising if someone really never visited Lahore and hear alot about it, about it's gardens, monuments from Mughal Period to &nbsp;Sikh and Colonial Period, to...

Punjab National Bank was founded in the year 1895 at Ganpat Rai Road, Lahore with the name of "Lahore National Bank" as an off-shoot of the Swadeshi Movement.
Among the founders were Sardar Dayal Singh Majithia, Lala HarKishen Lal, Lala Lalchand, Shri Kali Prosanna Roy, Shri E.C. Jessawala, Shri...

A group of hippies (British, French and American) wait for a bus in Lahore (1972). Pakistan was an important destination on what was called the &lsquo;Hippie Trail.&rsquo;
The trail was used by thousands of young European and American backpackers between the late 1960s and 1979. It was an overla...

The Pakistan Times - Founded by Mian Iftakhar ud Din "The Pakistan Times" a Lahore based English news paper. Faiz Ahmad Faiz joined as Editor at the age of 37-years as well as the head of the editorial board of its sister publications, Urdu daily Imroze and literary and political weekly Lail-o-Na...

Sahir Ludhianvi&rsquo;s real life story sounds like a movie script itself.&nbsp;
Amrita met Sahir sometime around 1944 in Preet Nagar, a village between Lahore and Amritsar. She was at this time married to Pritam Singh, who was an editor, but theirs was not the best of marriages. Husband and wif...

Iqbal was a poet who inspired Muslims with the spirit and determination to restore to Islam its former glory and although he is no more with us, his memory will grow younger and younger with the progress and development of Muslim India.
His works should therefore, be read and digested by every M...

Dr. Ajaz Anwar is a distinguished painter of Pakistan. He was a teacher at National College of Arts Lahore. His watercolor paintings show the grandeur of the old buildings and the cultural life in Lahore. Project Lahore team is grateful of being allowed to present his work on our facebook page an...

April 13, 1919 - Jallianwala Bagh Massacre When People of Punjab's Twin cities (Lahore-Amritsar) were on streets!
(in this rare Photo shown acceleration of Police to stop Demonstration in Amritsar)
&nbsp;
By April 6, the anti-Rowlatt satyagraha was at its peak in Punjab. "Practically the whole...

Raphael Tuck &amp; Sons of London were the world's premiere early postcard publisher. Tucks published its first Christmas cards in 1871 and first postcards, like many other firms, in 1898. The firm was a regular supplier of Christmas cards to Queen Victoria, and could boast the title "Art Publish...

Budha Darya (Old Bed of River Ravi) was the remains of old course of the River Ravi when it passed adjacent to the Lahore Fort, with&nbsp;time river changed the course as the Ravi flows past Lahore in Pakistan (26 kilometres (16 mi) below Amritsar in India) it is called "The river of Lahore" sinc...

Lahore Memories - 0048: Mr. Roy Holliday, posing at Lahore Railway Station while his journey to Karachi c. 1947
There written "Lahore" in English, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Hindi and Urdu respectively.
The photo was sent by Mr. Roy Holliday (87-Years old now) to Naresh Fernandes, A Journalist / Autho...

March 23, 1931: Bhagat Singh and two of his associates were sentenced to death at the Lahore Central Jail in Lahore conspiracy case.
On 17 March 1931, the Home Secretary, Punjab, sent a telegram to the Home Department, New Delhi, fixing the execution on 23 March 1931 despite the decision of Marc...

Sir Shah Nawaz Khan Mamdot with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah before March 23 Resolution Gathering
Sir Shah Nawaz Mamdot was one of the principal hosts and played a pivotal role in organizing the historic session of the All-India Muslim League in March 1940 at Lahore and bore personally almos...

An Advert of K. L. Saigal Performance in Lahore c. 1937
More about the biography of KL Saigal. It was his travel as salesman that brought KL Saigal to Lahore, where he befriended Meharchand Jain. With a passion for music, both remained buddies even when they moved to Kolkata and had many a mehfi...

Mohammad Rafi, was one such great contribution of Lahore to India and the rest of the world.&nbsp;
Born 24 December &nbsp;1924, in a village near Amritsar, &nbsp;his father shifted to Lahore and opened up a men's salon in Noor Mohalla, Bhatti Gate in the 1920s. For a couple of years, he was shav...

Iqbal was born in 1983 in Arshad, a very small, rural village outside of Lahore in Pakistan. He was sold into bondage by his family to pay for his brother's wedding as they had borrowed 600 rupees from a local employer who owned a carpet weaving buisness, and in return, Iqbal was required to work...

Gateway of Badshahi Mosque Lahore c. 1849, One of the earliest photographs of the Sub-Continent taken by Dr. J McCosh! a doctor and amateur photographer stationed in Punjab during 1847-49.
Though history of professional photography in India starts in early 1860s when British Government invited p...

From a poor background in Lahore, Lala Amarnath rose to prominence by scoring 109 ("a brilliant display" - Wisden) for Southern Punjab against MCC in 1933-34, and a few weeks later became a star with a century on his Test debut, India's first Test at home, at the genteel old Gymkhana ground in Bo...

List of places and their&nbsp;details
Badshahi Mosque from a 1000 ft or so above the Minar-e-Pakistan ! The surrounding areas including Cocoo's and the old city can also be seen.
The Model Town market where Bhaia Kababs are sold. One of my favorite eating places in Lahore. The view from above...

The Walled City of Lahore, also known as the "Old City", or "Androon Shehr" (Punjabi: اندرون شہر), (Literal meaning 'Interior City') is the section of Lahore, Punjab, in Pakistan, that was fortified by a city wall during the Mughal era. It is located in the northwestern part of the city.
Walled ...

Zamindar Football Club (circa 1960s) - Established some time in the early 1900s, Zamindar Football Club from Garhi Shahu produced some of the best local football players. The club even went to play in India and Sri Lanka on a number of occasions. A number of Sikh football players from India used ...

Ranjit Singh was crowned on 12 April 1801 at Lahore and he rose to be the ruler of a powerful state extending from Tibet&nbsp;to Sindh and from Khyber pass to the Satluj.&nbsp;For a brief half century, from 1799 to 1846, Lahore as the administrative capital of the Sikh Empire.
From 1814 to 1819,...

Maharaja Duleep Singh (also known as Dalip Singh), the last Sikh sovereign of the Punjab, was born at Lahore on 6 September 1838, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
On 18 September 1843, at the age of five, he was, after the murder of Maharaja Sher Singh, proclaimed Maharaja of the Punja...

The biggest, or perhaps the best known, festival of Lahore, is that of Basant (or Jashn-e-Baharaan) held in February each year. Basant is a Punjabi festival celebrating the onset of the spring season and is also called the Basant Festival of kites.
This festival is celebrated with kite flying co...

Historical Pak Tea House - Lahore
Pak Tea House had remained a favourite sitting place of some of the most celebrated intellectuals of the Subcontinent for many decades since 1932 (then India Tea House).
Among the literary personalities who used to visit the Pak Tea House on daily basis since t...

Why was Lahore called the gem of India? - &ldquo;That it indeed was,&rdquo; Pran Nevile a citizen of Lahore before partition and writer of "Lahore - A Sentimental Journey". He is an authority on pre-1947 Lahore replied.
&ldquo;It was totally different from the rest of India, in every way. It was...

Lahore Memories - LM017: Lahore Ki Yadien&nbsp;
Narated by: Surinder Nath Passey.&nbsp;
Born in Gali Shishe Motian in 1930. Brought up in Kucha Seth Har Parsad. This Kucha was opposite Dai Bholi Gali and could be approached from Mati Da Chowk. Our house could be approached even from Shalmi Gate...

Before 1935 there had stood a beautiful mosque for many years to the south of what is now called the Naulakha Bazaar, in the city of Lahore, having three domes and five arches (as seen in this painting), which had been built as a mosque (masjid) and which retained, notwithstanding consi derable d...

People of Lahore from the Book ""The people of India : a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan" published London circa 1868-1875 in 8 volumes.
Remarkably comprehensive photographically-illustrated ethnographic study of India. The...

The Civil and Military Gazette Office in Lahore
The Civil and Military Gazette was a daily English language newspaper founded in 1872 in British India. It was published from Lahore and Simla and Karachi, some times simultaneously, until its closure on August 31,&nbsp;1963 after 94 years of its p...

In February, 1912 the Lahore Electric Supply Company was formed with a capital of Rs. 5,00,000. The Company was registered on March 21, 1912. Lala Harkishen Lal became the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company. The construction of the equipment having been completed, supply was ...

Saadat Hassan Manto (b:1 May 1912 &ndash; d:18 January 1955), the most widely read short-story writer of the Urdu language. He is best known for his short stories, "Bu" (Odour), "Khol Do" (Open It), "Thanda Gosht" (Cold Meat), and his magnum opus, "Toba Tek Singh", born on 11 May 1912 at Samrala ...

Amrita Sher-Gil (30 January 1913 &ndash; 5 December 1941), was an eminent Indian painter born to a Punjabi Sikh father and a Hungarian mother, sometimes known as India's Frida Kahlo.
She first&nbsp;came to Lahore in 1937 from Paris for an exhibition at the Faletti&rsquo;s Hotel, to resounding su...

Last Princess of Lahore - Princess Bamba Sutherland (1869 - 1957)
The last of the survivors of the Maharaja&rsquo;s family, Princess Bamba Sutherland, who lived like an unknown in Lahore, the capital of the kingdom of her father and grandfather, quietly slipped into its soil on March 10, 1957, ...

Nur Jahan, the most powerful woman of Mughal Empire,, died on December 17, 1645 in Lahore
لاهور را به جان برابر خریده ایم - جان داده ایم و جنت دیگر خریده ایم
Born as Mehr-un-Nisaa, Noor Jahan's father Mirza Ghiyas Baig migrated to India with his family and in 1577, during the trip to India, Noo...

Turkish President and his wife visited Lahore in 1955. Two functions were arranged, one from the "Citizens of Lahore" in Shalamar Gardens and the second in Governor House. These are the scans of invitations cards for both functions.
Contributed and Narrated by: Mr. Hammad Nasir
LM044

Mr Balrahj Sahni was one of the leading actors from Bombay's Film Industry. He did his M.A (English) from Government College, Lahore. His mentor was Ahmad Shah Bokhari, former Principal of Govt College and later representative of Pakistan in UNO. Balraj Ji's ancestral town was Bhera, lived in Raw...

Mawlid "Birth of the Prophet" is the observance of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) which is celebrated often on the 12th day of Rabi' al-awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar. The 12th Day of Rabi' al-awwall is the most popular date from a list of many dates that are reported...

74 years back, in year 1939, my father was doing his college (BA-Hons) from Islamia College Lahore, he and his buddies arranged a gathering of young Muslims to celebrate "Eid Milad e Nabi" a token of love and respect to the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The Muslim Comrades League was close to Muslim Leagu...

Canal Bank Road is a 3 lane road in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan that runs along the banks of the Lahore Canal passing through Harbanspura, Mughalpura, Gulberg, University of the Punjab and Thokar Niaz Beg. The road starts from Thokar Niaz Beg and ends at the village of Khera near the border with Ind...

These are FC College student and staff picnic photos. The 1928 photo was taken at Jehangir's mausoleum, Shahdara. The 1929 photo was taken at Shahlimar Gardens Lahore. My father Mahmud Ali Shah was a student at FC College 1928-29. He went on to King Edward Medical College Lahore qualifying from t...

For the first time, these Leyland Double Decker buses were put on roads in Lahore city in 1951 by the Lahore Omnibus Service (LOS).
Lahorites had never seen a double deckerbus before &amp; looked at it as if it was a new "wonder". It was a pleasure to travel sitting on the upper deck. Slowly &am...

The art of Pahelwani is comprised of stance ("paintra"), and moves and countermoves ("daw-pech").
Paintra is the art of standing in the akhara. It is the point of entry into the act of wrestling and the prelude to every competitive wrestling bout ("dangal"). It is the fixing of the feet on the g...

One of the earliest color photos of the World &nbsp;taken in Lahore c. 1914
In 1909 the millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, and for, the peoples of the world. As an idealist and an internationalist, ...

I am sending you a photo album of my grand father's brother Muhammad Anwar Qureshi about their visit to Lahore in 1945 and 1948. He is mash Allah alive but not very active. Every photo has his own hand written note in Urdu.
My great grand father came in Lahore in 1930's and built home in Sultanp...

I am sending records of the family of S.Mehtab Singh's ji' son S.Tarlok Singh ji Anand who was born in Mazang studied there uptil studying law in Lahore .S.Mehtab Singh whose photo I also have was president of Bar despite being writer ofAdvocate Puri of Lahore High Court .The family lived on Temp...

My father JCW Eustace, who was with the ICS up to Independence and who returned to Pakistan on trips for work in the 50's and 60's. Unfortunately he died a long time ago, most of these Lahore pictures belonged to him taken on occasions of wedding gathering.
Contributed and Narrated by Emmy Eus...

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city-history.com is a voluntary, non-commercial/non-profit initiative. Major aim is to preserve the visual history of the people, traditions, social gatherings, development and heritage of Lahore through pictures found in different collections/archives and personal family albums with textual/video/audio narratives. The old pictures contain astonishing secrets, and when revealed with personal narratives, they become the missing links to Lahore’s emotional history.